Intel Offers an E-Reader, With a Difference

Electronic gadgets that help people enjoy digitized books are all the rage. Most share one assumption — that their users can read. Not so the latest offering from Intel.

Intel

Intel’s new Reader device

The company Tuesday announced the Intel Reader, a device about the size of a paperback book that is designed to digitize printed text and read it aloud to users. Intel is not targeting book lovers who want to lighten their briefcases and backpacks; its audience, the company says, is people with poor eyesight, dyslexia or other conditions that make reading difficult or impossible.

Intel, of course, is known for chips that other companies put into computers and other products. One place the company deviates from that strategy is its digital health group, which has been developing hardware and software to help medical professionals and their patients.

In this case, Intel says the idea for the product came from Ben Foss, a company researcher who is dyslexic and has had to rely on people to read books and other printed material to him.

Not surprisingly, the Reader uses an Intel chip, the tiny Atom that is used in most netbook computers. But the most important features are a high-resolution digital camera that users point at pages they want to capture, and software that converts the captured text into an audio file. They can boost the type size on the display screen, choose between a male or female automated voice and how fast they want that voice to read.

Foss, in a demonstration video, notes that he and other power users like to accelerate the playback speed to absorb more information quickly. The audio files can be converted to the MP3 format and transferred to computers and other devices. Intel plans also to offer a peripheral device called the Portable Capture Station, which looks a bit like a slimmed-down overhead projector and is designed to make it easier to shoot images of many pages quickly.

Of course, the idea of using computer technology to help visually impaired people is not new. Character recognition technology has existed for some time, as has technology that converts text into speech. The key is how accurately text can be captured and interpreted; Claudine Mangano, an Intel spokeswoman, notes that users have to learn how to take a good image, which is affected by lighting and other factors.

Another issue is speed. Intel says it takes about 30 seconds to process each page of text, though the time can vary based on images and the complexity of the layout. It took Foss about 30 minutes to scan in the pages of a 250-page book and then one hour to process them, she said.

Intel said the Reader has a list price of $1,499, and is available immediately in the U.S. and Canada through resellers that include CTL, Don Johnston Incorporated, GTSI, Howard Technology Solutions and HumanWare. Sales partners in the United Kingdom are expected to be announced shortly; other countries and languages also are being considered, Ms. Mangano said.